Editor's note: Licensing of marijuana businesses in Alaska is currently stalled on a bill allowing for national criminal background checks. Those businesses are scheduled to open in June.
Half of Alaska's marijuana excise tax could fund efforts to reduce the number of repeat criminal offenders through a new state senate bill.
Senate Bill 91, sponsored by Sen. John Coghill, would direct 50 percent of the state's marijuana excise taxes to a new recidivism fund for programs treating substance abuse, behavioral health and domestic violence, according to an article in the Alaska Dispatch News.
The bill assumes $3 million in marijuana taxes for the fiscal year of 2017, increasing to $6 million in following years.
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